


I Don't Want To Forget

by halmerny



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Engagement, F/F, LGBTQ Character, Lesbian Character, One Shot, carolmaria, carolmariamonica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 00:20:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18158969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halmerny/pseuds/halmerny
Summary: It's been six years since Carol Danvers died.It's been one year since Maria Rambeau got over Carol.So when Carol Danvers shows up at her house, she does the hardest thing she's ever had to do. She pretends they were just friends all along, because telling her the truth would be too painful.





	I Don't Want To Forget

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the movie but with some little peaks/adjustments.

_There’s a ringing in her ears as soon as she hears the words. The world stops moving. Everyone around her is talking to her, but she doesn’t hear them. She doesn’t hear a single thing happening around her anymore._

_The only sound she can hear is her heart beating rapidly against her chest, begging to stop beating altogether._

_To stop the shattering, the tearing, the absolute destruction of its very core._

_Carol Danvers is dead._

She wakes up with a start, looking around the dark, empty room she’s in.

She had the dream again.

It’s been six years since Carol Danvers died.

It’s been one year since Maria Rambeau last dreamt of Carol. Last ached for her. Last cried in the darkness of her room whenever she couldn’t reach out, couldn’t hold her, couldn’t find the comfort of her body pressed against her own.

That’s when her nightmares stopped. She would wake up every night from a different nightmare, but all of them ended the same. The same, horrific way her reality ended, too.

With her fiancée dying. With her fiancée being so utterly destroyed, they couldn’t find a single remnant of her. Nothing except one half of a dog tag.

The plane crash destroyed a piece of Maria, too. A piece of her that could never be replaced. A piece of her that left a big, gaping hole in her very soul; in the life she had spent so long building.

Her daughter was never the same, either. Monica’s father left long before she was born, but it never mattered. He was never her parent—that position was always filled by Carol. After the crash, Monica was never the same.

She was always the light that filled every room with warmth; with so much life that every single person in the room had no choice but to feel it, too. Her light was utterly contagious.

She lost that light after Carol. Maria tried to stay strong for her, for the child that should’ve been going to the playground, laughing with other kids her age, but instead had to attend a funeral without a body to bury. It was too much for a child to bear, but it made her age overnight.

Maria takes a deep breath, practicing the exercises she had learned in therapy.

_It already happened. The worst has already happened. It will only get better from here. Things will be okay._

She doesn’t know if she believes it. She doesn’t think she ever believed it.

She checks her alarm clock: 6:28 AM. She might as well get her day started.

She heads to the kitchen, making herself a cup of coffee. She puts the teapot on the stove, letting it heat slowly. Monica always had tea in the morning—it was always what she and Carol would do. Monica never let that habit go. She never let a lot of things go.

She sits down on the table by the window, taking slow sips of her coffee. Today is extra bad, but she will get through it, like every other day.

It’s been one year since Maria Rambeau got over Carol Danvers.

That doesn’t mean she ever stopped loving her.

She just moved on—she had to. For her sake, but also for her daughter’s.

“Mom?” She hears a groggy Monica say. She turns around, watching her daughter rub her eyes until they bring the room into focus. She smiles, standing to pour Monica her tea.

“Good morning, honey. I made you some tea.” She pours the hot water into Monica’s mug—the mug that belonged to Carol beforehand.

They drink their coffee and tea in silence, but it’s comforting. Monica is a warm reminder that Maria is actually glad to be here, afterall. Despite her many, many wishes of escape after Carol died. But Monica makes every aching feeling in her chest, every single tear in her heart completely worth it.

“Mom, can we work on the planes today?” She asks enthusiastically. She was starting to get her light back, something Maria feared she would never see again.

She smiles back. How could she deny her anything that makes her happy? “Of course we can. Go get dressed, I’ll meet you outside.”

Working on the planes was her favorite thing to do with Monica. It was a piece of her and a piece of Carol, a part of her past that would always be a part of her present—of her future. It was the very thing that brought her to Carol in the first place.

They spend almost every day out here, whenever they both can. Monica always has to finish her homework first, but that’s usually the thing that motivates her to get her homework done.

Maria was paid off by Pegasus after the crash—enough money to keep her comfortable and remain a stay-at-home mom. With the promise of her discretion, of course. She wouldn’t have taken the money if it weren’t for Monica. Her future was the most important thing to her.

They’re outside for what feels like hours, listening to music and working on the planes. Maria fixes the engine on hers—Monica pretends she’s a pilot in hers.

Then she hears it—a voice. A voice so familiar, so intimate, she couldn’t miss it from a hundred miles away. A voice that could’ve only belonged in her head. So she shoves it down, shoves the recurring memories and heartache down, trying to focus on her current project.

_This isn’t real. She isn’t real. You’re here, with your daughter, in a reality you don’t want but you must face anyway. She isn’t real._

“It really is you! Mommy, come here, it’s mama Carol!”

Her heart sinks at the words, the words she never thought she’d hear her own daughter say again. Was she starting to see her now, too? Was not putting her in therapy a mistake?

She walks out of the plane cautiously, careful not to approach this too aggressively. She looks at her daughter, whose face was lit up in a way she hadn’t seen in six years. She turns to the direction of Monica’s gaze, and for the second time in Maria’s life, the world stops moving.

She sees her—her very being, alive and without an inkling of change—standing in front of her. Her heart speeds up, her chest tightening at the scene in front of her. It’s Carol, but something is different. She isn’t _her_ Carol. The way she looks at her, at Maria, is not the same way her Carol would look at her. Did Pegasus find some sick way to clone people? Or was Carol alive all these years, living her life somewhere out there without her, without them?

Her breath hitches in her throat and she has to blink twice to make sure what she’s seeing is what she’s actually seeing. There’s a man standing behind her, but Maria doesn’t focus on that. She only focuses on one thing, one person—Carol.

Monica runs to her, wrapping her arms around Carol’s waist. She doesn’t react the way she used to. She looks down at Monica sympathetically, her voice kind. “I’m not really who you think I am,” she says, her attention diverted back to Maria. “Can we talk?”

\---------------

They’re back inside now, Maria seated at her breakfast table. She looks at Carol confusedly, having just heard the most absurd story in the universe. Carol survived the crash. Carol is now an alien. Carol has powers. Carol has no recollection of anything that happened before six years ago.

_Carol has no recollection of anything that happened before six years ago._

“So… You have powers?” Monica has been ecstatic since Carol’s reappearance. She doesn’t notice the changes that Maria notices; doesn’t notice the way her eyes don’t sparkle when she looks at them like they used to.

“I do. Let me show you.” She gives Monica a smirk and sets her hand on the teapot, the same teapot she would spend every morning making her morning tea with. If only she knew the irony in it.

Within two seconds, the teapot starts to boil, making a loud screeching sound to indicate the water was hot enough. Maria stares at her in shock, in complete disbelief. Two days ago, she never would’ve believed a thing she was being told. But after her fiancée coming back from the dead, there’s nothing she wouldn’t believe anymore.

All of this is absolutely unbearable. Maria has no idea how she’s holding herself together right now. The thought of having to re-explain her entire relationship with Carol seems laughable. What is she supposed to tell her? _We were best friends for so long and we fell in love and you asked me to marry you because you couldn’t imagine your life without me and we were a big happy family until the day you disappeared and we thought you were dead._

Right, because that won’t sound absolutely absurd.

So when Monica leaves the room to grab a box of Carol’s old stuff they had kept, she makes the hardest decision of her life—she tells the love of her life that they were best friends, nothing more. She doesn’t mention how in love they were, she doesn’t mention Carol being Monica’s other parent. She pretends that the greatest love story of all time didn’t exist, that they were nothing more than two friends who never looked at each other like they were the only two people alive.

\---------------

There’s a part of Carol that knows there’s more to the story than she’s being told. She felt it when she first laid eyes on them, when her heart started beating a little faster. She doesn’t know what it is, doesn’t know what it means. Maybe it’s the memories that were so ruthlessly erased from her begging to be released, to be remembered.

Despite not remembering her past with them, Carol can feel the importance these people had in her life. To what extent, she doesn’t know, but she feels it—her love for them. Her love for the woman who looks at her with a million stars in her eyes. Her love for this little girl whose positive energy was so contagious, it made Carol forget all about the skrulls she was running away from.

There’s one thing that keeps repeating in her head, the one thing she has been trying so hard to stick to, but feels impossible in this moment.

_Emotions make you weak._

But here, faced with two people who she knows played a huge role in her life, she feels stronger than she’s ever felt.

The little girl, whose name is Monica, comes back out with a box of stuff that belonged to Carol. Mostly photographs. She listens as Monica explains the context behind each photograph, but as she stares at each one, nothing comes back to her. The person in the pictures looks like her, but it doesn’t feel like her.

Who really was she, before all of this?

They tell her her name is Carol Danvers, but that name means nothing to her.

They tell her she was an airforce pilot, that that’s how her and Maria met. They were the only women in their division, aside from their commander, Lawson.

_Lawson. That’s who you’re here about._

But she wants to hear more, to know more, so she doesn’t bring it up just yet.

Back then, women weren’t actually aloud to fly in combat. So they would only fly on test runs for Lawson. They were always determined to do better, to be better.

_Higher, further, faster, baby._

The vague memory comes back to her, a memory brought back when she was held captive by the skrulls.

She listens to them speak about their past life together, how she was like a second mother, an aunt of some sorts, to Monica because her dad was never around. She listens to stories of their past adventures, of all the days spent laughing and all the nights spent crying. Of all the years spent in their own bubble, full of love and laughter and getting lost in each other.

She can’t help but feel like something’s missing from the story.

When they’re done talking, she finally brings up Lawson. She finally tells them why she’s here, and she watches their faces fall as they realize she isn’t here just for them.

They tell her about Lawson, how she died in the crash with Carol.

It doesn’t make any sense to her, why she’d be alive and the person who had discovered a light speed core is dead.

She spends the first night there sleeping on the couch. Well, she doesn’t do much _sleeping_ , really. How can she, when there’s so much at stake? So much to unravel?

So much to regain?

She hears a floorboard creek behind her, immediately becoming alert for anything that could go wrong. In half a second, she’s pinning the intruder against the wall.

“Carol, it’s me.” She immediately softens her hold on her, but doesn’t let go of Maria, not yet. While her heart made the decision to soften, her mind is still telling her not to trust anyone. _Emotions make you weak._

“Name a detail about me so private, only you would know.”

There’s a second of silence, and Carol is about to blast this imposter, when she hears Maria’s soft, cracked voice finally speak up.

“There’s a mole on your right hip that you used to hate. Monica named it Mr. Moley because she thought it looked like it had a mustache. After that, you didn’t hate the mole anymore.”

Carol feels her chest tighten, the energy shifting between them. She knows there’s something Maria isn’t telling her, but maybe going six years thinking your best friend is dead builds walls you don’t know you even have.

She lets go of her and they spend the rest of the night talking, catching up. Maria tells her about Monica, about how well she’s doing in school. About how after they thought Carol died, Monica said she would never love anyone like that again. Carol smiles, though she feels guilty. Is it her fault she doesn’t remember them?

Carol tells her all about Hala, about her people back home. She tells her her first memory—a blood transfusion. She tells her what it was like waking up with no recollection of her past; no idea who she was. How absolutely lonely it was to not remember a single thing from her childhood, or not remember ever staying up until 4 am laughing until she cried with her best friends.

“We used to do that,” Maria had said in response, her voice sounding more sad than anything.

So they did just that tonight—spent the entire night laughing until the sun came up. They made popcorn and told each other crazy stories, Maria telling Carol all about the insane things she used to do and Carol telling Maria all about krees and her life on Hala.

They’re interrupted by some unwanted visitors—skrulls she had been trying to escape from. However, when one of them, who goes by the name Talos, starts pleading to her, something in her chest tells her to give him a chance.

So she does. They gather in Maria’s office and listen to a tape Maria never knew existed. A tape that told the tale of Carol’s so-called death. A tape that brought every memory back to Carol in less than a minute.

_The coordinates. The plane crash. Every single second her heart beat afterward, reminding her she was still alive._

_Lawson telling her she was really an alien named Mar-vell. That she needed to protect those coordinates; to protect the core she had been working on._

_Yon-Rogg showing up and immediately killing Mar-vell, pointing his gun at Carol next._

_She remembers thinking she was going to die anyway, she might as well do it fulfilling Mar-vell’s last wish. She picks up the gun Mar-vell was carrying and shoots the engine._

And then everything else comes flooding back to her all at once.

She focuses on one specific memory.

_“Are you ready?”_

_“Higher, further, faster, baby.” Carol responds with their signature phrase and steps onto the plane, her heart beating rapidly against her chest. This was going to be her first time flying on her own. She was ready. She had been waiting for this for so long._

_Maria was right behind her. They were doing this together, each in charge of their own plane, a headpiece connecting the two of them. Lawson was on the ground, also connected to their headpieces in case anything went wrong._

_The minute she took off, she felt invincible; like she could conquer the world. The feeling of being in the air, being in complete control of every single thing in her life—both physically and figuratively—was exhilarating. She hears the exclaims of mirrored exhilaration coming from Maria, too. They were both so in love with flying, so in love with each other, that the feeling of one always intermingled with the feeling of the other._

_They’re back down on the ground now and Carol waits until they’re alone, waits until they’re the only two people in sight before she takes Maria in her arms, kissing her with the passion, with the strength of a thousand thunderstorms._

_Nothing could ever diminish the absolute ecstasy she was feeling in this very moment._

_And maybe the adrenaline had some part of it, but in that very moment, she knew—this was all she wanted for the rest of her life._

_“Marry me,” she had whispered to Maria, her arms wrapped around her neck._

_“What?” Maria responded in disbelief._

_“I mean. I know legally we can’t, or maybe we can somewhere, or someday. But I just don’t want to spend another minute without you being fully mine. So marry me, because I love you.”_

_They spent all night celebrating their engagement._

Everything else easily comes back after that, all the information that was locked down now out in the open, and the emotion of it all is almost too overwhelming for Carol. She can feel them only after they’ve fallen—her tears that she’s spent her whole life being told made her weak. By a man who lied to her her entire life. A man who had murdered her mentor, the only superior who had ever believed in her.

She looks up, then, at Maria, their eyes locking in unspoken secrets. And she knows then that Maria senses the shift, that she knows Carol remembers.

Carol isn’t sure she can handle doing this around all these people. She wipes at her tears and storms outside, hoping Maria will follow her out.

She does.

“You remember, don’t you?”

She turns to face her, to face the woman who had stolen her heart, the woman she had promised forever to. The woman who thought she was dead for six years. The woman who told her they were nothing more than just friends.

“Yes,” she answers quietly, unsure where this will lead.

“I didn’t tell you because… I didn’t know how to explain it you. You would’ve thought I was crazy—“

“I know.”

They spend the next day preparing for Carol to finish Mar-vell’s mission.

They don’t talk about it much, but there’s so much left to say. Carol knows she’s leaving, but saying goodbye to her again seems unbearable.

So, as they’re standing outside saying their goodbyes, Carol says something crazy. “Come with me.” She leans her forehead against Maria’s, remembering the smell that hits her nose—coconut shampoo.

“Carol, I can’t.” She pulls away, her eyes glossy with sadness. “I can’t leave Monica—“

“Mom, what kind of example are you setting for me if you don’t go on the coolest space mission of all time?” Monica walks up to them, wrapping her arms around the both of them. “Go with mama Carol, I can stay with grandma and grandpa.”

Carol tightens her arms around both of them, looking up at Maria with her lips half tilted in a smile, half in a smirk.

“Come with me, Maria. I don’t want to do this without you.” She doesn’t mean just the mission.

She thinks it over for a second before making her mind up, pressing a small, tender kiss to Carol’s lips.

“Okay, I’ll go. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! My CarolMaria heart broke while writing this so I hope yours did too. Let me know what you think :)


End file.
